I apologize for this lengthy story ahead of time, but I need to vent and I need advice - this being my first restoration, being a bit tarnished by an experience I had on Friday.

I wish I had more knowledge to be able to work on the mechanical parts of my car myself, but I'm a bit of a novice at this point. Instead, the owner of the garage that I'm paying to work on the car let's me come in the garage to watch and take pictures. I usually call and ask when he'll be working on the car, and lots of times it has got pushed off because things come up. I can tell he gets annoyed sometimes, but he cuts me deals here and there, so I try to be accommodating and understanding. I even gave him my brand new sandblasting cabinet as a 'tip' when I was done with it. He didn't thank me, but instead said to "leave it by the door' when I dropped it off. He had sold me a pancake air compressor a week earlier to use with my sandblaster (little did I know that wasn't enough pressure) so I called him and asked him why it wasn't working. He told me to bring it by and he's take a look at it. When I got there, he finished working on a car for about five minutes then shouted to everyone in the garage "I'm going to get a haircut. Be back in a little bit." 45 minutes later he comes back and takes two minutes with me and insists it's probably just too wide and long a hose and I'm losing air pressure over that. I find out soon enough that a 1/3 HP 3 gal comp. ain't going to cut it and borrow a bigger one from a friend. He gave me a low-ball estimate about a month ago on the rebuild cost for my engine, which sounded reasonable to me, so I went with it. The machine shop owner was ticked because he said the garage had no business throwing unrealistic numbers like that out. So, at this point I'm feeling like I'm being treated like a jerk a bit and my time is being disrespected, but the mechanic working on my car is a good guy, so I let it go...Then this past Friday happens.

Last week, I asked him to give me a certain day and he told me Friday morning. I took the day off work and showed up in the morning and was told to come back 3 hours later. (I live 20 minutes away) I came back and then the owner says "It's looking more like Monday, now." I was frustrated and said "I took the day off of work. This sucks." He said "Fine, I'll rush the other job out and get your car in." Then walked out to the garage and started working on it. I went around the building to the back bay and told him "Don't worry about it. Take your time. Monday is OK?" (I thought I was being very reasonable at this point) He doesn't thank me or apologize, instead tells me "Be here. 8 am sharp. I have other jobs I gotta do that day and it's starting to look crazy." I start walking back to my car, realize I left something in there, and when I get back to the open bay door, the owner has his back to me speaking to his son and I hear him say "Move this Mustang so we can get Joe's Piece of S__t car in here." His son looks at me mortified, the owner turns around, gets red in the face and says "I was just messing with you" and starts tinkering with the car. I stood there in shock and then replied "You didn't even know I was there." I was ticked. I went into the back room and grabbed all my parts and left.

I wanted to just have my car towed out of there at the moment, but didn't want to make any rash decisions on the spot nor speak when I'm mad - something I've learned over the years. I get a call from this guy an hour later telling me "You took your parts, but you forgot the biggest part - your car. If you don't want us to work on it, take it out of my driveway...You need to man-up and not throw a baby fit...This is the adult world and this is the way we talk in garages...you took what I said out of context, I call lots of cars pieces of s__t...I knew you were there. I'm not stupid. I knew you took it the wrong way when you made that comment and walked awayYou shouldn't have even been there to hear that because I let you go in areas other customers don't go and I've cut you deals here and there...you won't find another garage that will do that for you...I can take or leave this project so if we're not doing this then the car needs to go" I was appalled. I told him "It wasn't a baby fit. I'm putting a lot of money into this car at your encouragement and that means something to me, so to hear you say that...I was ticked and needed to walk away and cool off. I'd rather you just be honest and tell me you didn't know I was there and that you were frustrated. On the other hand, I had taken the day off work, lost money and was still understanding enough to tell you I'm cool with Monday." He denied meaning anything by it again and told me it did relieve pressure and to "Never ever take anything I say inside the garage while I'm running around to heart."

By the end of the call, he still never 'apologized' but I felt like maybe we could get this thing done and agreed to hold Monday's appointment. I'm just a little uncomfortable giving someone with that type of attitude my business. He's got a big ego because he does do good work and gets lots of business, but it bothers me he would disrespect myself with the call telling me to "man-up...not throw a baby fit" and my car with his comment. I still believe I caught him with his pants down and that he really felt that way and was just back-peddling on the phone. On the other hand, the mechanic actually doing THE WORK on my car is a really good guy - very knowledgable, loves my car and actually took my service manual home with him to read...he's also researched parts and parts rebuild places for me on his off hours, so I'd hate to lose him. The owner isn't really doing anything except taking my money and I've now lost respect for him.

So far, they have basically taken the engine out of the car (it's at a local machine shop right now) and Monday they are scheduled to drop out the gas tank and the power brake booster/master cylinder which I will take with me. Then the car will sit for two months until I have the engine back and they will reassemble it. What do I do here? Do I have them do the work on Monday then have it towed elsewhere or stick with this place since they're the ones that took it all apart. What to do? Thank you for any advice you can offer ahead of time...And sorry again for the lengthy novel of a post.

I don't need to hear any more, I wouldn't leave my car with that POS if the f-ing work was being done for free!

Sorry, but there is NO WAY I would give that jerk any of my money! And I have to tell you, in my personal experience the rude POS with the big ego usually ISN'T as good as you think and he is a legend in his own mind!

I am sorry, he is a pathetic excuse for a businessman and I would pull the car out of there and go somewhere else. You don't want a confrontation so I would talk like HE should be talking. That would be taking full responsibility for the situation. "I'm sorry, I don't want to get in your way so I am going to take my car". That sort of talk, you don't have to run in there all smoking and ticked off telling him GIVE ME MY CAR. Just go in there with a good attitude and tell him you don't want to "take advantage" of him.

So how about doing it yourself? You can rent the cherry picker, you can buy an engine stand for not a whole lot, or maybe rent it too. You can learn this stuff, it isn't that big of a deal with you have a forum like this to get advice on how to do it. I just installed the convertible top on my car never dreaming in a million years I could do such a thing, all with the help of this forum.

I pulled the motor in and out of two of my cars for the first time recently because my mechanic (my brother) moved out of the area a few years ago. I got a little last minute help with stuff and it all worked out fine. The machine shop can assemble the motor probably so you don't need to do that, think about doing it yourself. Yep, I'm sorry but there is NO WAY I would get that jerk any of my hard earned money.

Always been a do it yourselfer....learn from my mistakes kind of guy....My first engine job, I had no experience, was a 396 Chevelle that I bought and it blew 2 weeks later....Dad said.."Well, we better fix that"....and we did, in the basement. Took all winter, but got it done.

As for Mr Personality in that shop..........He has a lot to learn about business......Even joking to his employees shows them what a tool he is. They likely have no respect for him either

This is one of the reasons I have stayed 12 years where I am working, the owners treat the customer like I feel the customer should be treated. And that is with respect and understanding and they are ALWAYS right. They maybe "unreasonable" in that some little flaw is something I personally would live with on my daily driver, but they AREN'T wrong about it. The flaw EXISTS, so damn it correct the issue for them with a smile. I love turning around a customer who some other employee has ticked off (morons). It just happened the other day, there was a problem with a car and someone else said something that ticked him off, he was out there in the parking lot calling his insurance company (who sends us hundreds of thousands of dollars in business every year)! I went and expressed just what the owner of the company would do, I sucked it up and was humble and understanding and ate all the crow I could eat and told him we would take care of it, putting him back in a rental car at our expense and that was that, he left with a smile on his face, as your customers SHOULD! The customer PAYS MY HOUSE PAYMENT! He puts food on my families table, he deserves to have his butt kissed, not kicked!

No, honestly, there is no way I would give money to a guy treating me like crap, there is NO WAY.

you need to ''man up'' and realize this guy will only take your money and suck you dry.
pull your car out of there and learn to do it yourself, we all started someplace.
you will lose any money paid, he will hold you hostage over the motor work, but he hasn't paid the machine shop anything yet.
talk to the machine shop and see if he will work with you and if he can do most of the rebuild
having a shop restore a car can be a money pit, most of us here diy, that's why sites like hotrodders.com exist.

Anyone who changes prices a bunch, THAT is a huge red flag. A "Pro" can look at a car and KNOW what's coming to some extent. If I can't look at a car sitting there for restoration and give you a darn good idea of what I will come across while restoring it, I must not have done one in the past right? There are patterns you see when working on cars, very rarely are you caught off guard, unless you are 1. Lying to get the car in the door, or 2. Ignorant to what you will find because you have never been there before.

I wouldn't give that SOB one more dollar of my money! Anyone who talks that way, and then doesn't apologise when he's caught is a jerk! He didn't know you were there, and to call you at home and further insult your intelligience by reaffirming he did know is more baloney!
Get the car towed out, and take it home, then get some tools and start learning. Go to a few car places and get some reccommendations for people who can help you without giving attitude and disrespect.
Sounds like a good reason to start learning how to repair your own car. At the least you wont have the repairman calling you or your car names!

I don't need to hear any more, I wouldn't leave my car with that POS if the f-ing work was being done for free!

Sorry, but there is NO WAY I would give that jerk any of my money! And I have to tell you, in my personal experience the rude POS with the big ego usually ISN'T as good as you think and he is a legend in his own mind!

I am sorry, he is a pathetic excuse for a businessman and I would pull the car out of there and go somewhere else. You don't want a confrontation so I would talk like HE should be talking. That would be taking full responsibility for the situation. "I'm sorry, I don't want to get in your way so I am going to take my car". That sort of talk, you don't have to run in there all smoking and ticked off telling him GIVE ME MY CAR. Just go in there with a good attitude and tell him you don't want to "take advantage" of him.

So how about doing it yourself? You can rent the cherry picker, you can buy an engine stand for not a whole lot, or maybe rent it too. You can learn this stuff, it isn't that big of a deal with you have a forum like this to get advice on how to do it. I just installed the convertible top on my car never dreaming in a million years I could do such a thing, all with the help of this forum.

I pulled the motor in and out of two of my cars for the first time recently because my mechanic (my brother) moved out of the area a few years ago. I got a little last minute help with stuff and it all worked out fine. The machine shop can assemble the motor probably so you don't need to do that, think about doing it yourself. Yep, I'm sorry but there is NO WAY I would get that jerk any of my hard earned money.

Brian

Quote:

Originally Posted by ogre

you need to ''man up'' and realize this guy will only take your money and suck you dry.
pull your car out of there and learn to do it yourself, we all started someplace.
you will lose any money paid, he will hold you hostage over the motor work, but he hasn't paid the machine shop anything yet.
talk to the machine shop and see if he will work with you and if he can do most of the rebuild
having a shop restore a car can be a money pit, most of us here diy, that's why sites like hotrodders.com exist.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MARTINSR

Anyone who changes prices a bunch, THAT is a huge red flag. A "Pro" can look at a car and KNOW what's coming to some extent. If I can't look at a car sitting there for restoration and give you a darn good idea of what I will come across while restoring it, I must not have done one in the past right? There are patterns you see when working on cars, very rarely are you caught off guard, unless you are 1. Lying to get the car in the door, or 2. Ignorant to what you will find because you have never been there before.

Brian

Quote:

Originally Posted by 1971BB427

I wouldn't give that SOB one more dollar of my money! Anyone who talks that way, and then doesn't apologise when he's caught is a jerk! He didn't know you were there, and to call you at home and further insult your intelligience by reaffirming he did know is more baloney!
Get the car towed out, and take it home, then get some tools and start learning. Go to a few car places and get some reccommendations for people who can help you without giving attitude and disrespect.
Sounds like a good reason to start learning how to repair your own car. At the least you wont have the repairman calling you or your car names!

Thank you all for your advice and your support. It can be intimidating doing this on my own and it's nice to have support from experienced rodders such as yourselves. Him calling my car a POS was additionally insulting because I'd expressed hesitation at several points about restoring a 4-door and he was always supportive - telling me that it's only worth what people are willing to pay, but if it has sentimental value and I'm keeping it, then to do it for me. To hear him say that tells me what he really thinks. Then telling me to "man up" and that I "threw a baby fit" - I find it rather ironic since he didn't want to own what he said and never tried to resolve it on the spot, but instead turned around and started tinkering with the Mustang. He said he knew I was ticked when I told him "You didn't even know I was there" yet he never tried to resolve it. He was really tough on the phone, but he's lucky I walked away, b/c I would've laid into him, which in retrospect I should've done. Was just trying to keep cool and not make any hasty decisions. I guess if that makes me less of a man, then so-be-it. This is all too bad because at least the mechanic working on it was decent. The machine shop is seperate so I've been paying them directly. One of my pals says that it's normal for garages to put restorations off on the backburner to other customers' regular drivers and that I'm over-reacting to him constantly re-scheduling b/c things 'come up.'

I think MartinSr is right - that I should approach him with a good attitude and just tell him I'm going to get it out of his way. I have to find another garage to bring it to and I don't have any storage to put it yet. I don't want to give him any more of my money, especially a disrespectful ego-maniac like that who says they can "take this job or leave it" and obviously doesn't respect me or my time. I have an 8am appointment in the morning for them to pull out the gas tank and the power brake booster/master cylinder which should probably take an hour or two. Do I have them do that and pay them a few bucks so I can send the parts out for rebuild then have it towed or just call it all off and tow it right away? Thank you all for your wisdom. I can hopefully learn how to do this on my own if I get the space and someone willing to walk me through it.

Show up down there with a towtruck and a cop and get your car outta there man. What an arrogant POS.
I dealt with an A Hole like that once.Jim Queens transmission in bradenton florida. What a loser. He tried every trick in the book to hose me.
He had me so mad I wanted to hunt him down like a coyote.
You need to cut your losses my man, right NOW. If I were anywhere near I would come over and help you load your pony.
That guy is a real turd.

Yeah, I wouldn't let them touch the car, go there with a tow truck and take it. It's like a jerk I had once that I had to give the car back to him, I called the tow truck, paid for the tow, told them were it was going and after he left I THEN called the jerk to tell him it was on the way. That way there is no decisions, he can't talk you out of it, you made up your mind and you are taking the car. Call the machine shop they will have all the shops they do business with in a nice little row from good to bad in their head. They will tell you of the best place they have done business with. It's a shame you have no where to do it, pulling the tank and the master cyl is easy stuff.

Show up down there with a towtruck and a cop and get your car outta there man. What an arrogant POS.
I dealt with an A Hole like that once.Jim Queens transmission in bradenton florida. What a loser. He tried every trick in the book to hose me.
He had me so mad I wanted to hunt him down like a coyote.
You need to cut your losses my man, right NOW. If I were anywhere near I would come over and help you load your pony.
That guy is a real turd.

Hey, man! Thanks for your support! That's how I felt at the moment which is why I walked away. I used to suffer from Marty McFly syndrome - everytime someone called me a chicken I'd get into it. I'll be 35 in December and I've worked hard on keeping my cool, so to get called out on it and told to "man up" was really pushing the wrong buttons. I don't feel like he ever really hosed me as he would charge me $10 less an hour and no tax if I paid in cash, then again he did hose me on disrespecting my time and not thanking me for the $130 sandblasting cabinet I gave him, that I only used once. Then also told me a couple weeks ago that I'm better off taking any other work like the radiator re-coring and engine rebuilds directly to those places otherwise he HAD to mark it up and pass on that cost to me so he could show proper income on his taxes if he ever got audited. I felt like he tried to help me out here and there, but holding that fact over my head and as leverage and preparing me for possible future insults by saying "Don't EVER take anything I say in the shop to heart" is too risky to continue with.

Hopefully I can get there early and not get into a big confrontation. I'm all squared up with him on payments, so I hope he doesn't try and pull something. He also does most of the work for his local police dept. so the cops won't be on my side.

As I said before, I wouldn't give him one more dime. I'd call a tow truck early and arrange for him to meet me there when they open and haul it home.

Already called a tow truck and made arrangements to call him in the morning. He can't be there first thing but said he could pick it up in the morning at some point. I plan on going in earlier than 8 and telling him I've decided to pull the car because I don't want to continue butting heads and having any further problems. I'll tell him in person, that way he can't accuse me of not "manning up."

This guy has put a sour taste in my mouth and I don't like him any longer, so I don't need to taint my restoration by continuing to do business with him. As a funny side note - I met him because he hired me through the local news station to shoot and edit his video commercial. I saw the quality he was doing and went with him for my own repairs. Have been giving him business for over a year. What a jerk...

His arrogance and belittlement of your person was what did it for me. I know how that feels. I wont tolerate it. I took tranny man to the state of florida dept. that was in charge of stuff like that. He called me a week later and gave me my money back.Then he short changed me the 107 bucks for sales tax. I called the state again, a week later the 107 check was at my door.
Opinions are OK, even if they are different, but when someone puts ya down like that.... well....
To quote the great and famous James Carville " I wouldnt urinate down his neck if his heart was on fire"
Go get your car, keep it a suprise, make a list of parts so you dont forget anything,and dont take no for an answer

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